Durham Trilogy 01. The Hungry Hills

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  He sprang to his feet, belying the calm of moments before. ‘I can’t ask anything of you,’ he rasped. ‘I’ve only ever been able to take what you’ve offered, Eleanor.’ He turned blazing eyes on her. ‘I’m not your husband. You’ve never really belonged to me!’

  Eleanor supported herself on the scrubbed table as the tirade hit her. She had never seen such anger in him before.

  ‘You speak of me as if I were something to possess,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘I’ve given freely of my love - I’ve cared for you, Eb, as I’ve cared for no one else in my life. I’m Reginald’s wife in name only.’ Her dark eyes filled with unsummoned tears. ‘Is my love not enough for you?’

  Eb swung away from her, biting hard on his earth-ingrained hand. For a moment there was silence, except for the rhythmic ticking of a large black clock next to the larder door.

  When he answered her plea, his voice was empty of anger.

  ‘Your husband will use me against you. As long as we continue to see each other he has a hold over both of us - and over my family. Perhaps if we end our friendship he will stop persecuting Sam and Louie.’

  Eleanor bowed her head under the weight of his reasoning. Eb seemed to know the kind of man her husband was.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ she whispered, fiddling with a mother-of-pearl button on her dress.

  Eb turned and came towards her, but Eleanor froze at the thought of him touching her in comfort. If she allowed him to hold and kiss her goodbye she would never have the strength to let him go.

  ‘No, Eb,’ she warded him off with her hands, ‘we’ve made our decision.’

  He stopped, unsure, his face suffused with sadness. Then the door behind them swung open and Hilda came bursting in, long arms protruding from a too-short coat as they gripped a basketful of last-minute groceries.

  ‘By, it’s parky out there,’ she exclaimed, then stopped at the sight of her brother and Eleanor Seward-Scott. They stood apart like chiselled statues. ‘Sorry, miss,’ Hilda apologised hastily, ‘I didn’t realise you were here.’

  Eleanor took a grip on her emotions and managed a smile.

  ‘That’s perfectly all right, Hilda. I was leaving anyway. I just called in with a Christmas box for you and your family - Eb can carry it home.’

  ‘Thank you, miss,’ Hilda answered brightly, ‘that’s very kind of you. Isn’t it, Eb?’ Hilda saw her brother struggling to look pleased. He managed a nod; Hilda felt annoyed at his rudeness.

  ‘Well, I’ll go and join Miss Joice in the drawing room,’ Eleanor announced. ‘Goodbye, Hilda, goodbye, Eb.’ She met his look briefly and saw the pain.

  When her brother did not reply, Hilda gave a cheerful farewell for both of them. ‘Have a happy Christmas, miss, and thanks again for the present.’ Eleanor left the kitchen and immediately Hilda pulled the string on the wrapped box on the table. Delving into its contents she found a large ham, tins of fruit, conserves, pickles and chestnuts.

  ‘This’ll make Mam’s Christmas dinner,’ Hilda declared. ‘We were just going to have soup.’ She glanced at her brother, who still stood looking at the kitchen door. ‘What in the wide world’s wrong with you?’ she asked, although she guessed something momentous had just taken place. ‘It’s Miss Eleanor, isn’t it?’ Hilda answered her own question. ‘Have you fallen out?’

  Eb turned and looked helplessly at his sister. ‘Oh, Hildy,’ he sighed, ‘give us a hug, will you?’

  Without further interrogation, Hilda rushed to her eldest brother and flung her arms around his neck like she used to when he came home on leave from the War and she was still a spelk of a girl.

  ‘You’ve always got your family, you know,’ Hilda assured him. Eb gave an answering squeeze.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  During the following week, Eleanor immersed herself in preparations for Beatrice and Sandy’s wedding, which was set for the eighth of January. Christmas passed in an uneasy truce between herself and Reginald. Her father chose to ignore her anger towards him for siding with Reginald over control of the mines and attempted to jolly his elder daughter with a ride on New Year’s Day. Despite her hurt, Eleanor relished the chance to escape for the day and canter across the brown moors following The Grange hunt. The chase did not hold the same thrill for her as it did her father or husband, but she delighted in the cold polar-blue sky above and the glinting white frost that never thawed from the north-facing briars and hedgerows.

  At the end of the day she came home exhausted, declined an after-dinner game of bridge and, for the first time in over a week, slept soundly. Sandy joined them on the fifth of January, with his parents, Colonel and Mrs Mackintosh, and by the sixth Beatrice had worked herself up into a frenzy of excitement.

  ‘Just two more days to go, Eleanor,’ she cried ecstatically, ‘then I’ll be Mrs Alexander Mackintosh!’ They were walking out of St Cuthbert’s having discussed the flower arrangements with Mrs Hodgson and their own head gardener.

  ‘It’ll be a wonderful way to start the New Year.’ Eleanor squeezed her sister’s arm affectionately. ‘Let’s hope it’ll be a happier one than last year.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a grump,’ Beatrice complained. ‘It wasn’t such a bad time. Even that boring old strike had its moments - you should have tried driving one of those vans - what a lark!’

  Eleanor withdrew her arm, astonished by her sister’s lack of sensitivity. ‘It was no lark for the miners and their famines,’ she retorted.

  ‘Oh, who cares?’ Beatrice pouted. ‘They’ve got their jobs back now, so they can’t complain. I thought you’d be thankful it’s all over - Reggie’s in a much better mood these days.’

  ‘Not with me.’

  Beatrice scrutinised her elder sister. ‘Are you still having an affair with your mystery man?’ she asked bluntly.

  ‘No, that’s all over,’ Eleanor snapped, and walked briskly to the car.

  ‘Then what you need is a new lover,’ Beatrice decreed without a blush. ‘Play Reggie at his own game.’

  Eleanor laughed shortly. ‘Hardly the thoughts that should be going through the head of a prospective bride.’

  ‘Oh, Sandy and I are different - we’re young and madly in love. There’s no question of darling Sandy being unfaithful to me.’

  Eleanor was silenced by Beatrice’s youthful arrogance and tactlessness. A moment ago she had been tempted to confide in her sister about her future plans, the ones she was wrestling with each sleepless night in her huge empty black and white bedroom. But Beatrice was so blind to anything beyond her own limited social world, she would not comprehend Eleanor’s ideas. Climbing into the back of the Bentley with her sister chattering about her bridesmaids’ dresses, Eleanor realised the depth of the chasm yawning between them. She herself had once belonged to a world of debutantes and formal parties, high fashion and Tatler gossip, but none of that interested her now.

  Out of the car window she watched four parishioners hanging out flags above the lych gate and bedecking the bare trees around the small country church with bunting. It had been decreed that the local children would have a holiday from school in celebration of Beatrice’s marriage and Eleanor knew there would be a large crowd, drawn by curiosity and excitement, hoping to catch a glimpse of the grand wedding. But how many of the pit folk resented the flaunting of such wealth and happiness in the midst of their misery? She imagined how Eb would take himself off to his allotment for the day, turning his back on the conspicuous celebrations and shunning the cap-doffing to the daughter of the landlord. At that moment Eleanor felt helplessly alone.

  The other house guests arrived on the eve of the wedding: Beatrice’s friend Sukie who was chief bridesmaid; Charlie Ventnor and his new wife; Will Bryce; two MacKenzie aunts and uncles and seven cousins (three of whom were to be bridesmaids and one a pageboy); two schoolfriends of Beatrice from Cheltenham Ladies’ College; and Sandy’s two brothers. Reginald’s parents, Henry and Alice Scott, now retired to Wimbledon after thirty-two years in
the Indian Civil Service, were taking tea in the drawing room when the sisters returned. Henry, a first cousin of Thomas Seward-Scott, was a quiet, stooped man with only a few strands of hair left on a pink scalp, his face and hands stained with brown sunspots. Alice sat straight-backed in her chintz-covered chair with all the stern authority of a memsahib overseeing her household.

  How she would shudder at the moral lapses of her son and daughter-in-law if she knew about them, Eleanor thought drily as she brushed her mother-in-law’s cheek with a kiss, thankful that she only saw the Scotts on rare family occasions such as this.

  ‘Eleanor, you look too thin,’ portly Alice Scott scolded predictably. Eleanor knew she was a disappointment to her mother-in-law, championing causes instead of producing the next generation of Seward-Scotts.

  ‘Have some more Christmas cake,’ Eleanor smiled, turning away. She shook hands with her father-in-law; he had never been one for kissing unless his natural shyness had been loosened by a couple of gimlets. The MacKenzies were different, and Eleanor was swamped by embraces from her Scottish cousins.

  Will Bryce detached himself from a group by the fire and came to join Eleanor in the recessed window. He kissed her cheek.

  ‘I think you look swell,’ he teased, ‘thin but swell.’

  Eleanor laughed and felt grateful for his attention. As they talked about trivial things, she remembered how amusing Will could be. He had cultivated a slim moustache since their last meeting, which gave his genial face a raffish appearance.

  After dinner, there was open house for neighbours and wedding guests to meet for drinks and dancing until midnight. Just before then, Sandy and his brothers would leave for a hotel in Durham, so as not to bring bad luck by seeing the bride on her wedding day before the ceremony. The Mackintoshes were adamant the tradition should be adhered to.

  Sandy’s stocky brothers, Roderick and James, struck up the pipes at eleven and filled the ballroom with a deafening blast of music. Sandy grabbed Beatrice and whirled her around the dance floor to the spirited jigs, and soon the glass-domed room was a sea of kilted revellers twirling partners in sparkling evening gowns and headdresses.

  Will forced Eleanor on to the gleaming dance floor. They spun around in a fast polka until their heads reeled and Eleanor felt the American’s grip tighten around her waist. He did not disengage himself immediately the dancing stopped.

  Champagne was brought in on silver trays for all the guests and a round of toasts made to the forthcoming wedding. Soon after, Sandy and his entourage of Highlanders left, and Eleanor chased Beatrice and Sukie to bed.

  ‘I’ll not sleep,’ Beatrice protested.

  ‘You will,’ Eleanor insisted. ‘You must have all your strength for tomorrow.’ Knowing that Will was waiting for a moment to find her alone, Eleanor feigned tiredness and escaped to her bedroom. She found his persistence flattering, but to give him expectations of becoming her lover would only be to use him as a means to smother her longing for Eb. Aching as the emptiness inside her was at the thought of not seeing Eb, she could not treat Will so carelessly.

  The morning of the wedding passed in a flurry of activity and last-minute preparations. As breakfast was cleared away in the dining room, an army of servants set about erecting trestle tables in the ballroom to accommodate the vast number of guests. On top of the starched linen were set polished silver cutlery and ornate candelabras, thin-stemmed glasses and the best gold-edged family china for the wedding feast that the kitchen staff had been preparing all week. Huge arrangements of flowers came in from the hothouses and added fresh splashes of colour now that the festive holly and Christmas decorations had been dismantled. The ballroom sparkled in the soft wintry light that emanated from the opaque roof. Fires that had been banked down over night were stoked up, coal scuttles refilled and dozens of bottles of wine and champagne brought up from the cellars. Outside, the gardeners festooned the entrance way and pillars with Union flags, banners depicting the Seward raven and a St Andrew’s flag in honour of Sandy’s family.

  The house reverberated to the orders of the butler, housekeeper and cook and the feverish chatter of guests passing on the stairs or congregating in the drawing room.

  At eleven, Bridget helped Eleanor dress in her outfit of coral and green, fastened down the back with tiny pearl buttons. To go with it she had a matching wraparound coat and pearl-studded cap that she would put on at the last minute. She went to help Beatrice dress.

  ‘You look wonderful,’ she gasped in genuine admiration, catching her sister’s reflection in the long mirror. The body of Beatrice’s dress was of plain satin, hanging loosely over her curved form and gathered at the hips. Over this was an outer dress of intricate lace matching the long train that fell away from her lacy headdress. Strings of pearls hung over her breasts and the dress was raised at the front to show her slim ankles clad in white silk stockings, and her satin shoes.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Beatrice smiled with nervous red lips, the blonde curls of her hair stuck firmly around her flushed forehead and cheeks. Her green eyes shone impishly, as if she had been drinking.

  ‘Mother would have been so proud.’ Eleanor felt the emotion bottle her throat. She went impulsively to Beatrice and hugged her.

  ‘Mind my veil,’ her sister complained.

  Sukie came in from the adjoining room in a flowing pink dress and a low-brimmed cloche hat. ‘We’re all ready, Bea,’ she grinned. She was followed by a chattering horde of pink satin bridesmaids, their dark hair enhanced by white flowers.

  ‘Where’s Archibald?’ Beatrice demanded crossly. Sukie looked around for the missing pageboy.

  ‘Probably run off with other boys,’ Sukie shrugged. Eleanor thought her sister was about to burst into tears. Below could be heard the smooth thrum of car engines as the house guests set off for the church.

  ‘I’ll find him, you go on downstairs - Daddy’ll be waiting,’ she said, taking charge.

  The kilted Archibald was found clambering along an outside window ledge, the bouquets of flowers were distributed and the whole entourage helped into the two waiting cars and an open carriage. Beatrice had insisted on being driven to St Cuthbert’s in the magnificently polished blue Seward landau. Eleanor had persuaded her not to demand that the tenants pull her down the hill to church as had been the custom in the last century. Eleanor had called the custom positively feudal and her sister had reluctantly settled for two horses instead.

  All the staff turned out at the front door to see Miss Beatrice off to church on the arm of a proudly beaming Thomas Seward-Scott, his face the colour of his red buttonhole. Eleanor watched them detachedly for an instant, reflecting that it was an aeon ago that she had left with her father for her own wedding in the ancient medieval church on the edge of the village. Younger than Beatrice, she had taken the step into marriage with hardly a second thought. Silently she wished her sister a happier partnership than she had achieved.

  Then she stepped into the final car where Reginald and Sukie were waiting and watched The Grange and its waving retainers disappear as the car swung away down the drive.

  ‘I can’t be bothered.’ Louie resisted Hilda’s attempts to drag her down the village to see the bride arrive. Hilda had the day off work as the Joices would be attending the reception, and she was eager to participate in the fun.

  ‘Oh, come on, Louie,’ she pleaded, ‘you know you want to see Miss Beatrice’s dress.’

  All at once, Fanny was convulsed by coughing and her daughters looked at her anxiously, momentarily distracted from their arguing.

  ‘I remember going to see Miss Eleanor married,’ Fanny Kirkup reminisced as she cleared her throat. ‘She was a beauty in those days.’

  ‘Please, Louie,’ Sadie added her weight to winning round her cousin, ‘there’s tea and cake in the church hall afterwards.’

  Louie grunted. ‘They wouldn’t give us a crumb during the lock-out.’

  ‘Go on, pet,’ her mother intervened unexpectedly, ‘you deserve a day of
f. You said Sam won’t be home until tea time - he’ll not know.’

  Louie glanced at her mother in surprise; the older woman understood her so well. Sam had chosen the day of the coal owners’ festivities to tramp down the valley to seek work in a neighbouring pit belonging to a different coal company. It was his unspoken protest at what he saw as the sickening extravagance of the Seward-Scott wedding. ‘Salt in our wounds,’ he had complained to Louie. ‘All that money spent on a silly spoilt lass instead of paying us decent wages - it’s a bloody disgrace!’

  Louie had agreed, so to go now and participate in the revelries seemed disloyal to Sam. Still, she so longed for a dash of spice in the grey drudgery of her life and it would all be over long before Sam returned. He probably wouldn’t question her anyway. He was so wrapped up in his own shroud of bitterness, he no longer seemed to care what she did.

  ‘All right,’ she grudgingly agreed. Sadie clapped her hands and Hilda dashed to get Louie’s coat and hat.

  ‘I want to hear all the details, mind,’ Fanny croaked.

  ‘Aye, Mam,’ Louie promised, unable to hide a smile.

  As they headed out of the door, Hilda gabbled excitedly. ‘Miss Joice said the bride’s dress came from Paris,’ she announced, proud of her knowledge.

  ‘And Paris is the capital of France,’ Sadie said, thinking it important to demonstrate her newly acquired wisdom.

  ‘Fancy going all that way for a dress,’ Louie remarked as the younger girls bustled her into the lane to join the other women and children making their way to St Cuthbert’s.

  In the end, Louie was glad she had gone. For a couple of hours she forgot her worries about Sam’s unemployment, the debts they owed and their creeping estrangement, and feasted her eyes on the spectacular sight of the wedding party. The road around the church was thronged with villagers all pressing for a view of the bride. Following Sadie, who managed to wriggle her way to the side of the road, opposite the lych gate, they commanded a good view of the arriving guests. Those who had been waiting all morning stamped their feet to keep warm.